WHO AM I? WHAT IS MY EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND? I’m Steve, an experienced, motivated and well-qualified English language teacher from England. I gained my BA degree in June 2006, and completed the CELTA course a few months later. The CELTA is considered to be the gold standard qualification for teaching English as a foreign language. After a few years teaching in Poland and Bosnia, I studied for a master’s degree in English Language Teaching in England between 2009 and 2011. My master’s opened my eyes to the importance of demonstrating language learning strategies to students, among many other topics. In 2011, I gained a specialist qualification for Business English trainers - The Certificate in International Business English Training (Cert IBET). TEACHING EXPERIENCE AND COURSES Between 2006 and 2011, I taught General English in Poland and Bosnia. After gaining my master’s degree and Cert IBET qualification, I moved to Łódź to teach Business English to managers of SMEs and those working in logistics. From 2013 until the present day, I spent four consecutive summers preparing foreign students for academic study at The University of Southampton, in the UK. Between 2014 and 2016, I worked at The University of Novi Sad, in Serbia. When I left Poland in 2013, I continued to teach Polish students via Skype. When it comes to courses I teach, I specialise in the following: My own ‘Fluency-Development’ course Exam courses - CAE / IELTS Business English Polish Matura WHAT MAKES ME WELL-QUALIFIED TO TEACH ENGLISH TO POLISH STUDENTS? I have had constant contact with Polish students since 2006. From this time until the present day, I have acquired excellent knowledge of the types of issues Polish students of English face because of negative language transfer. Language transfer is the tendency to transfer the phonology, syntax, and semantics of the native language into the learning of the second language. Therefore, I teach Polish students how to lessen their reliance on Polish and “think in English”. For more information on language transfer, read my article: https://englishcoachonline.com/blog/typical-mistakes-polish-learners-of-english/ WHY SHOULD I BE YOUR TEACHER? I’m interested in teaching students who wish to enhance their conversational ability and boost their knowledge of vocabulary and collocations commonly used in informal spoken English. I personally sit with students and demonstrate methods I have devised to efficiently memorise vocabulary and collocations. It is also important to create personalised sentences with newly-learned words collocations. For more on this topic, read this page: https://englishcoachonline.com/learning-strategies/word-table/ I focus on providing students with high-quality authentic language learning materials. Back in 2012, I realised that I needed to take my students away from the imaginary and unrealistic texts often found in coursebooks, and bring them much closer to their teacher, real-life situations and the language and phrases used by native speakers. Therefore, I started to write texts about my own experiences living and working abroad, travelling around the world, renting a flat and numerous other situations. I provide audio files for all of my texts. You can read more about my texts here: https://englishcoachonline.com/learning-strategies/texts/ In addition to my texts, I also share news articles and TED talks with students. WHAT ARE THE CONDITIONS OF MY LESSONS? Lessons with me take place on the Słoneczna Morena estate, Gdańsk, or I can travel to your place. For my ‘Fluency Development’ course, I just charge 1 zloty per minute. Classes can last 30 minutes, 45 minutes or 60 minutes, depending on your needs. I believe that it’s better to have short but regular classes so that English becomes a habit. I believe that prices for lessons with me are very fair, especially considering the fact that all students receive sound recordings and individual lesson notes for revision after every class. FREE TRIAL CLASS? I do. It’s with pleasure that I explain my teaching methods and ideas about the way spoken fluency can be effectively achieved during a FREE trial consultation meeting.